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Does a 'religious left' threaten Abbott? | Business Spectator

Here is a rare and interesting opportunity to read about progressive people of faith, the "religious left", outside of the U.S. Rob Burgess of the Austrialian Business Spectator looks briefly but effectively at the situation, its recent past, and the domestic issues that may bring together the "religious" and the "left". See also the piece by Barney Zwarts in the Brisbane Times.

One might expect, therefore, to see church leaders picking up the same themes and looking for ways to assist the left of politics to back their social justice vision.

Such a union was seen as pretty natural in Australia right up until the 1955 Labor Party/Democratic Labor Party split precipitated by B. A. Santamaria’s Catholic Social Studies Movement.

Since that time, however, gettting ‘religion’ and ‘left’ together has proven much more difficult. Many of the political issues raised during the liberationist movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s – sexual liberation, contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage and the like – helped drive a wedge between church groups and the political left.